Welcome to the NVC Library

Yvette Erasmus shares that we can translate or shift how we hear right and wrong language. We can use the cue - What is needed? I wonder what they are needing? This helps direct my attention to more relationality.

• language of life
• needs
• consciousness
• right wrong language
• Yvette Erasmus

Trainer Tip

If a man speaks or acts with pure thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him.

—Buddha

We have four choices of how to respond to someone, even when they say things that are hard to hear. If someone says to you, “You shouldn’t have done that, it was inappropriate,” consider your four options.

The first one is to blame the speaker. “What do you know about what’s appropriate? You are the last person who should be talking to me about appropriate!”

The second option is to blame yourself. “Oh he’s right. I shouldn’t have done that. What was I thinking? I’m always doing the wrong thing.”

A third choice is to empathize with yourself by acknowledging your feelings and needs. “When I hear him say that, I feel hurt and angry because I need understanding and acknowledgment for how much effort I have put into this.”

The fourth option is to empathize with the speaker, listening to his feelings and needs. “Are you worried because you value this project so much, and you wanted to make sure it goes well?”

It seems astonishing, but every time someone communicates with us, we have four choices on how to respond. Choose your response based on the needs you want to meet in the moment.

Today, be aware of the four options you have when you respond to someone, and consciously make your choice based on the needs you want to meet.

This trainer tip is an excerpt from Mary Mackenzie's book, Peaceful Living, available from PuddleDancer Press.

• choice
• blame
• reactivity
• empathy
• Mary Mackenzie

Trainer Tip

We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.

—Benjamin Disraeli

Love can be both a feeling and a need in Nonviolent Communication. It can be seen as a need if we do something to meet our need for love, such as reading to someone, helping someone with his homework, snuggling, or helping our elderly mother comb her hair. For many of us, any of these activities would meet our need for love.

We can also experience love as a feeling, just as warmth, affection, and excitement are feelings. We might feel love when we hear our child let out a big belly laugh, when we see our dogs curled up on the floor sleeping soundly, when our best friend calls us after being gone for a period of time, or when our partner comes home with our DVD because he knows we’re feeling blue.

Often, but not always, we can feel love and meet our need for love at the same time.

Notice when you feel love and when your need for love is met today and what caused this.

This trainer tip is an excerpt from Mary Mackenzie's book, Peaceful Living, available from PuddleDancer Press.

• love
• distinction
• Mary Mackenzie

Trainer Tip

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.

—Thomas Jefferson

Not everyone will receive your honesty with joy. If they seem unhappy, this is an indication that they have unmet needs, not that you have made them unhappy. Remember that feelings are a result of met or unmet needs; a situation is only the stimulus of feelings, not the cause. When someone doesn’t appreciate your honesty, try empathizing with them.

What if your partner has body odor that you find offensive? You could say to him: “Honey, when we are physically close and I smell your body odor, I feel kind of grossed out, and it’s hard for me to want to be intimate with you. Would you be willing to start wearing deodorant?”

Maybe your partner won’t enjoy hearing this, so he might say: “Oh come on. It can’t be that bad!” Now is the time for you to empathize. “Are you feeling hurt and embarrassed because you value tolerance?” “Well, yeah. Plus, you know that I don’t like to put unnatural crap on my body!” “So, you’d really like understanding that you don’t wear deodorant because you value your health?” “Yeah!”

“You know, I hear that you show respect for your body by not putting chemicals on yourself. I respect that too. At the same time, I am concerned because your body odor is strong enough that I resist being close to you. Would you be willing to go to the health food store and look for a more natural deodorant? Or, maybe would you be willing to take a shower and change your clothes every day?”

“Well, yeah, I guess I could go the health food store and look for a natural alternative to deodorant. I’ll do that tomorrow after work. And, I’ll go take a shower right now.”

When we withhold our truth or lie, we can create emotional and physical distance in our relationships. By being honest, we can strengthen them.

Be aware today of how your actions stimulate feelings in other people but are not the cause of their feelings.

This trainer tip is an excerpt from Mary Mackenzie's book, Peaceful Living, available from PuddleDancer Press.

• honesty
• conflict
• empathy
• Mary Mackenzie

Amidst the Israel/Palestine war we see polarizing media portrayals and the battle for public opinion. Read how one person shares his deep, personal connections to the Israel/Palestine conflict, expresses the trauma and viewpoints of both Palestinian and Israeli experiences -- in a way that aims to transcend polarizations, hold compassion, and understand the complexity on both sides. Despite the immense challenge that defies easy resolution, he holds hope, noting historical reconciliations such as the ones between Germans and Jews.

• Israel
• Palestine
• war
• conflict
• polarization
• empathy
• occupation
• violence
• Yoram Mosenzon

• self determination
• race
• NVC community
• authenticity
• privilege
• silencing
• social change
• BIPOC
• Roxanne Manning
• Roxy Manning

Have you ever found yourself passing judgment on a co-worker's seemingly disorganized desk? Mary Mackenzie's experience sheds light on the fact that she and her colleague with the "messy desk" shared a common need for order. Recognizing that our needs align can lead to a softening of judgments, creating space for connection, understanding, and harmony.

• Mary Mackenzie
• needs
• connection
• judgment

So many of us have been taught to solve conflicts by what is “fair.” However, Miki Kashtan states that fairness is a separating concept. In this video, she describes how when we do not have the conditions to care for all needs involved, when we live within separation, fairness is second best.

• Miki Kashtan
• capacity
• limits
• fairness
• needs
• support
• agreements

When it comes to self-sabotage and self-limitation, what's happening when we make ourselves smaller than we are? And what is it with the crippling experience we suffer when we exceed our own self-imposed limitations? What unconscious needs is your nervous system meeting by remaining small? Read on for the insights of Beatrice Beebe's research on biological imperatives, emotional language, and emotional limitations.

Resonant language is language that takes us out of the static brain space and into the brain’s fluid space. In this video, Sarah describes the basics of resonant language and how, when you start to move into the fluid space of the right brain hemisphere, everything starts to change.

• Sarah Peyton
• resonance
• brain science
• nervous system
• curiosity
• warmth

Before you make a request you can connect fully to a time when your need was met. Notice how your request feels and sounds different from this place of aliveness. Excitement about meeting a need implies confidence and trust about moving forward together. Offer an invitation to find strategies that work for both of you.

• request
• demand
• collaboration
• LaShelle Lowe-Charde
• Elia Lowe Charde

Yoram Mosenzon discusses judgmental dialogue and its hidden aim to meet needs. This often creates distance instead of fostering connection. Yoram introduces a self-connection exercise to improve the chances of dialogue becoming more enriching and life-serving.

• exercises/practices
• judgment
• self connection
• criticism
• jackal show
• jackal thinking
• self expression
• Yoram Mosenzon

To express opposition without stimulating distress, stop judging and look for ways to honor, understand, and have compassion for others. You can do this by finding a point of agreement. For example, you can agree with part of what they said. Or if you completely disagree, you can express what greater understanding, inspiration, appreciation or empathy you have in response to what they're saying. Read on for more on this, plus, ten sentence stems to get you started.

Keywords:

• disagree
• prevent conflict
• opposing
• connect
• Martha Lasley

Trainer Tip

Our faith must be alive, always growing, like a tree.

—Thich Nhat Hanh

Serenity is a state of being and a universal need that is peaceful, tranquil, and clear. We can be serene even in a catastrophe, or when life is challenging, or when we are scared, hurt, angry, or sad. This happens when we are able to connect to what we value most, and to act in harmony with those values.

In Compassionate Communication, many of us hold a deep value to connect with people. When we are open to connecting even if we are triggered, angry, sad, or hurt, we can achieve serenity in that moment.

Let’s say you volunteer your time by working at your local soup kitchen. You are excited about the quality of food it provides and how it supports the people in your community. Each week when you go to volunteer, one of the other volunteers talks to homeless people in ways that don’t meet your needs for respect and consideration.

You can choose to lose your serenity by gossiping about your colleague to other volunteers, not saying hello to him when you see him, or ignoring him. If you choose these behaviors, however, you will probably also lose connection to the joy you feel through your volunteer work and your respect for the soup kitchen.

There is another option you can use to maintain your serenity. You can say hello to your colleague when you see him, talk to him honestly about how you feel, connect with him about how he feels, and focus on the needs you try to meet by working at the kitchen each week. The more we focus attention on our greatest needs, the more serenity we will enjoy in our lives from day to day.

Make a decision to live with serenity even if challenging situations arise in your life today.

This trainer tip is an excerpt from Mary Mackenzie's book, Peaceful Living, available from PuddleDancer Press.

• serenity
• integrity
• resilience
• conflict
• peace
• Mary Mackenzie

Yvette Erasmus shares practices to help us develop a regulated nervous system. We all get hijacked and triggered at some point. When that happens we can travel a blame and shame road or we can greet ourselves with graciousness and self compassion.

It sounds like:

• I didn't have it in me today.
• I am a work in progress.
• I want to develop this skill so I will keep practicing.

• nervous system
• self compassion
• self regulation
• emotional regulation
• Yvette Erasmus

Close to 20 years ago I went to Pakistan with my close colleague Ike Lasater to work with Afghan tribal elders in a refugee camp along the border. It was January 2002, soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. and our bombings and invasion of Afghanistan. It was a particularly dangerous time for Americans to go to that part of the world, yet for reasons I can only understand in hindsight we went despite the very strong warnings being put out by the U.S. State Department.

This decision to go despite all common sense to the contrary turned out to be one of those life altering experiences. It became my origin story of the work I’ve done ever since, of bringing empathic communication into conflict situations and conversations. I have told this story of Ike and my adventure together countless times. However, in light of recent events around the U.S. withdrawal of military forces in Afghanistan and the ensuing chaos, I realize I want to tell a different version of the story.

The story as I have always told it was about two naive Americans going into a refugee camp and ending up mediating a conflict situation between Afghan elders in a moving way using skills of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). A part of the story that I haven’t always included is now what I think is the more important aspect. In long flowing beards and robes, thirty or so elders from different tribes and from different parts of the Shamshatoo camp region came to meet with us over a three day period.

With the help of our translator Abad we at first tried to get across the idea that we were there to offer training in Nonviolent Communication skills. This made no sense to them. What they did want to talk with us about was their deep anger and pain in relation to foreign countries’ devastating involvement in their country. In their eyes we represented the United States and they wanted to be seen and heard. So, that’s what we did for two full days, listened and reflected back to them what we heard, especially their feelings and their needs for empathy, care, respect, trust, integrity, honesty, to matter and be seen, and many more tragically unmet needs.

Through steep challenges translating a multitude of different languages and dialects being spoken, we could tell when empathic communication and connection was happening between us and them. The urgency and intensity of their voices and body language would subside, like the enormous energy of an ocean wave being received by the shore. Their eyes and faces would soften. At times tears would well up in their eyes, followed by periods of stillness and quiet. And then another wave of pain would well up, demanding to be expressed, and heard. Hearing this pain we too were moved to tears, our hearts broken open. When they were done telling us what they wanted us to hear, we asked if they wanted to hear from us. They said yes, and we expressed our great sorrow hearing all they had been through and our government’s role in their tremendous suffering.

Witnessing what is now happening in Afghanistan and seeing with new eyes what has been going on there for many decades, it is this simple yet profound part of our story that seems to me most relevant. We went there to share skills we had found so valuable in our lives, but it was we who had learning to do first, and it was only after there was enough human connection between us that there was the trust to receive what we had to offer, which turned out to be allowing us to mediate a conflict between them that arose in the group while we were together using empathic communication.

The lesson I see to apply to what is happening now is for us all to not remain in our heads in what we believe and how we judge right and wrong, what should or shouldn’t have been done. The learning is to continually drop awareness and attention down into our bodies and emotions, and deeper still to what we all want as human beings. Can we move towards each other in our differences and disagreements with empathic understanding, and then down through the heart to the center of our being where we touch and connect to the universal in each of us? This is what the elders taught us, what needs to happen before we can move forward together.

• applied NVC
• sharing NVC
• conflict
• mediation
• empathy
• Afghanistan
• John Kinyon

Trainer Tip

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.

—Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Sometimes I hear people say that they don’t have the energy to be authentic, and that it is easier to ignore their truth to keep the peace. I understand this sentiment because I lived this way for many years.

I thought it took less energy to censor myself, to go along with what other people wanted, and even to keep myself from having opinions. Now I know that stuffing my feelings, needs, desires, and truth took a tremendous amount of energy every day.

It took years for me to acquire the skills to do this—to automatically deny my needs without thinking about what I was doing. When I began to change this habit, it seemed overwhelming because it was different, and I was unaccustomed to focusing on my feelings and needs. I left the familiar territory of trying to figure out what others wanted. I had to learn a whole new vocabulary that acknowledged my feelings and allowed me to speak up for my needs. It took some time to develop these new skills, but I discovered the most amazing thing: it took far less energy than stuffing my feelings! Today, I feel free. The energy I once used to deny myself is now available to let me experience joy, love, happiness, and hope. It is an expansive opening that I could never have experienced before. The possibilities are endless.

Notice how often you censor yourself to keep the peace. Then, become willing to express your true feelings and needs.

This trainer tip is an excerpt from Mary Mackenzie's book, Peaceful Living, available from PuddleDancer Press.

• authenticity
• people pleasing
• codependence
• negative peace
• suppression
• speaking up
• personal liberation
• Mary Mackenzie

Instead of allocating and gifting resources based on needs, we cling to having more money or privilege than others because its close enough substitute for our deeper longing.  We may also cling to narratives that seem to legitimize this inequality as something we deserved -- such as earning it; being lucky; getting inheritance; having more talent or ability; or needing more to sustain the growth of the company.  This soothes our discomfort of having more than others.  But these narratives still block us from genuinely getting in touch with the needs of life.

As human beings, our inherent goodness makes most of us believe in equality and yet sometimes our conviction in this same 'goodness' may make us blind to the reality of our own behavior. We are so convinced about the innocence of our intention that we seize to look at the impact of our behavior and thus our unconscious biases often go unexamined and unchallenged. Diversity, equity and inclusion work will only be of lip-service until we are willing to look at our own unconscious biases. Listen as Anisha Pandya encourages you to look at the possibility of how our self-awareness is so limited and one of the ways of expanding that awareness is by moving beyond our intention, looking at the impact of our behavior and remaining open to feedback.

Keywords:

• Anisha Pandya
• Authentic Communication Group
• bias
• inclusion
• diversity
• equity
• unconscious bias
• self awareness

This past weekend was the 4th of July, Independence Day holiday in the U.S. It is meant to be a celebration of liberty, equality, and opportunity. But instead of celebration I feel deep mourning and pain.

The American mythology is that liberty, equality, and opportunity are for everyone. Yet from the formation of this country and to this day it seems, these needs have been for some at the expense of others. Our country began with the brutal robbery and genocide of Native Americans and slave labor of Africans. This theme has continued on through the generations in various forms, including how we have related to other peoples, countries, and the natural world and environment.

I struggle with finding empathy for the magnitude of all this, for those who want to maintain this way of relating, and for those who cling to the mythology. I also struggle for empathy with how the objectification, implicit biases, and seduction of privilege live inside of me. I at times cycle between intense anger and despairing disillusionment with all of humanity. And then, as I struggle to find the words to write to you, a Shakespeare love sonnet fills my mind and heart:

“… Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.” (sonnet 29)

Shakespeare’s “thee” for me is the spirit of empathic connection. I see this spirit awakening and arising in so many people around the world now. But what are we awakening from?

The concept of the human Ego has for a long time been unclear and unhelpful to me, but suddenly now it opens me to greater understanding and compassion. For now I see the Ego as the part of all of us that believes we are completely separate and therefore cut off from the love, security, and wellbeing of connection with shared humanity and the wholeness and sacredness of Nature, Life, Reality. Ego sees the world as a continual life-or-death struggle for survival and battle over scarcity.

Fearful and insecure, carrying personal and ancestral trauma, I see the Ego at the root of any beliefs or behavior that are not loving, caring, and cooperative. It helps me tremendously to see and remember this. I am moved to want to connect empathically with this frightened and isolated aspect of me and others, and then refuse to cooperate with it from a compassionate place.

This is how I see that we bring liberty, justice, and opportunity to All – all humans and all life of the ecosphere. Will you join the great work of our time of supporting one another to remember this empathic response and act with compassionate noncooperation?

• liberty
• justice
• Independence Day
• history
• USA
• marginalization
• decolonization
• equality
• propaganda
• liberation
• disinformation
• myth
• society
• social change
• John Kinyon